Three cyclists killed in Spain as van ploughs into riders

Three cyclists, one Australian and two from Switzerland, were killed in Spain yesterday when a van ploughed into a group of 60 riders near Tarragona, Catalonia. The victims, all keen triathletes, were in the country to take part in an Ironman training camp.

The victims were named as 34-year-old Chanelle Carter from Western Australia, who died from her injuries after being airlifted to hospital in Tarragona, and Swiss Nationals Medhi I., aged 33, and Sandra G., who was 34 years old, both of whom died at the scene.

Ms Carter worked as a senior research chemist at Alcoa Australia, and also spent time volunteering for the charity, Oxfam, according to the WA Today website.

The fatal crash happened just after midday near Mont-Roig del Camp near Tarragona. Police have not yet established what caused it, but according to the newspaper El Mundo, given the scale of the accident, they are working on the hypothesis that the driver may have been distracted, or was speeding.

The Catalan police force, the Mossos d'Esquadra, have arrested the driver of the van, named as 57-year-old José G.I. from nearby Reus, on charges of reckless homicide and injury. While initial reports suggested that the driver may have been drunk, he was subjected to a routine breath test by police which returned a negative result.

Born in Scotland, Simon moved to London aged seven and now lives in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds with his miniature schnauzer, Elodie. He fell in love with cycling one Saturday morning in 1994 while living in Italy when Milan-San Remo went past his front door. A daily cycle commuter in London back before riding to work started to boom, he's been news editor at road.cc since 2009. Handily for work, he speaks French and Italian. He doesn't get to ride his Colnago as often as he'd like, and freely admits he's much more adept at cooking than fettling with bikes.